A CONVERSATION WITH MIKE SUTPHIN
Continued from page 43
What do you do when
you’re not working?
I’ve had to learn to turn the key, go
home and enjoy family time, or else
I’d be working 24 hours a day. My
wife, Rena, is a school teacher. She’s
going to retire this year after 37 years
of teaching. She taught first grade for
22 years and fourth grade for the last
11 years. My son, Brad, works with
me here at AIS and is responsible for
sales. My daughter, Lora, is a therapist
in Austin, Texas, working with young
adults and teenagers. I have two redheaded granddaughters, Gracie, 6, and
Faith, 3. Those are Brad’s kids. Lora has
two children; Cash, who is our only
grandson and is 3, and Mae Byrd, who
just turned 1.
I love being with my grandchildren,
but I also enjoy fishing. We have a
24-foot Bay Ranger and enjoy bay fishing on the coast. We also have an annual duck hunt with my brothers and their
families in southeast Arkansas. Golf,
flying and church round out my life.
What does your crystal
ball say about the future?
We will see continued small growth
– it will be very gradual. What we’re
facing now is that it’s very hard to
obtain the products and services from
some of the manufacturers. In addition, credit is so much tighter than it
has been in the past, which hurts everyone involved, especially our customers’
financing of projects. Manufacturers
used to keep products in stock, but no
more. It’s incredibly difficult to provide immediate products and services.
Ten years ago, 90 percent of what we
needed was in stock, and we could
quickly get something to our customers. Today, there is a lead time for most
everything. We try to predict what is
going to sell and keep the inventory
required, but all it takes is one unusual
order and you are out of stock again.
Recently, we had an extreme case
where we were told the lead time
for a product was 720 days. That’s
because the manufacturing equipment had been decommissioned
during the downturn in the economy. As I said, that’s an extreme
case, but we’re seeing standard lead
times that used to be days turn into
12 to 18 weeks on most everything.
That’s hard to forecast for inven-
tory modeling and even harder to
tell a customer who has an airplane
needing a part tomorrow. This is
going to be the greatest challenge
as we move forward. It’s always
easier to spool down an operation
than to spool it up again, but I
am optimistic about the future. q
To learn more about AIS, visit
www.avionicsinternational.com.
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avionics news
•
february
2013
47

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